


A Snake In The Shower

by cailures



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-06 20:00:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20297125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cailures/pseuds/cailures
Summary: A one-night stand, a lot of pining, and ducks.





	A Snake In The Shower

**Author's Note:**

> FOR #8

_Someone made a joke that seemed hopeful_  
About things that go bump in the night  
At first it kind of picked up the party  
And then it kind of ruins your life 

-

"Tell me, Crowley," Aziraphale said over their plates of perilously delicious crepes, "do you think the humans have got it all wrong?"

Crowley leaned back in his chair for exactly as long as it took to hear the crowd roar as another poor sod lost his head, then raised his eyebrows in a speaking glance.

"Well, yes, of course, though really - well, you can't blame them, it's only their nature. Well, I suppose you can. But I meant -" And then Aziraphale turned bright red and shoved a crepe in his mouth, inelegant and not at all slowly enough to truly savor the taste, as he had been doing for thirty maddening minutes. Crowley didn't understand how an angel could be such a _sensualist_. 

He got distracted enough watching Aziraphale's mouth work that for long moments, he didn't realize he hadn't answered. Then, of course, a blush as red as all that guillotine blood swept over Aziraphale's face. Right. "What did you mean, angel?"

"I meant - the act of love."

Crowley thought of churches and babies and all the disgusting hugging and kissing he'd seen in his time among the humans. "Well, it's their great gift, your lot claim. I'd think you'd know."

"Not -! Crowley, I'm talking about -"

And then somehow he blushed even more, stuffed with crepes and prudish as anything. It all clicked into place. "For Hell's sake, you can just say sex, you know."

"I am an angel! We don't!"

"Angelic history begs to differ."

"Even angels are capable of making poor choices," Aziraphale said stiffly, and Crowley felt a wretched wave of fondness overwhelm and break over him, painful as anything. But -

"Really? So you've never tried it, not even once?"

"Why would I?"

"Why try theater? Or oysters, or wine -"

"Yes, yes, I take your point. But it's messy, and you need two people. I simply couldn't."

"Why not?"

"Can you imagine trying to - seduce a human? How does one even go about it?"

"Well, right now they're all too busy killing each other -"

"It is distressingly common! And that's just the most immediate question. There's the issue of _feelings_, and inadvertently hurting one of them, or -"

"What about me?"

Aziraphale froze. Outside, the crowd roared with blood lust; inside, other patrons clinked their silverware and muttered fearful imprecations. Crowley wondered what might happen if he were to bite his tongue off, and/or disappear.

"You?" Aziraphale finally said, the way Crowley might have said 'the love of God?' or 'being spatchcocked and grilled over hot coals while Hastur takes credit for original sin?'.

"Never mind."

"No no no, I hadn't considered - but of course you aren't - well. Of course! But have you done it before?"

"Course I'm not what?"

"Human! With all the limitations thereof, and of course the grace."

Right, he'd tossed off the grace a long time ago. "True. I can't imagine your lot would be happy with it."

"Well, they wouldn't be happy with _this_, either."

It was such a silly way to refer to it all; not just the Arrangement, but their lunches together, the fact that Crowley had saved Aziraphale from being discorporated. The fact that though they did thwart each other, they spent at least as much time encouraging each other in exploration, in subverting the rules. Crowley furiously told himself that it wasn't encouragement, not for him, it was tempting. He was tempting Aziraphale, even now. But then he imagined pulling him down - making him Fall -

No, he couldn't do that, not even in his defensive imagination. Aziraphale'd as soon drag him back up first, though of course that wasn't possible and Crowley wouldn't go even if it were. "True enough," he said, instead of, 'does God care if you fuck a demon? Does She acknowledge the difference between fucking me and simply staring at me like I'm another one of your bloody crepes?'. "Angel, pass the jam, would you?"

When they'd finished lunch they traveled back together, and then Aziraphale turned to Crowley and said, "Goodbye, Crowley."

"Come back to my townhouse, it doesn't have to be something They know about, we'll keep it between us," Crowley said all in a rush.

Aziraphale's eyes widened. He took a deep, deliberate, unnecessary breath. What else might he do that was unnecessary, just to feel it? Everything, Crowley feverishly hoped. "Yes. But -! Oh, very well, yes."

"It's a nice townhouse, I got it from some lord something-or-other, did you know they'll just gamble away entire residences? 'course I had to dismiss the staff, but they've all got settlements -"

"Crowley," Aziraphale said, eyes crinkling for some unknowable reason. "I said yes, you know."

"Well of course you did!" He'd just panicked a bit, was all. "Come on, then."

Aziraphale didn't seem interested in his townhouse, which was just as well since he hadn't bothered to replace most of the previous owner's belongings, so it had a bit of a funeral air. But the bedroom, well. He was a demon; he enjoyed pleasures of the flesh. He'd had the bedroom redone, mattress replaced, big dramatic wall hangings put up. The sheets were fine linen and he always expected a lovely breeze to be coming in from the enormous windows, so there was.

"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale sighed. "It's beautiful."

"It's all right," Crowley said, and reached out to pull Aziraphale to him and give him the most sinful kiss he'd ever half-dreamed of receiving. He'd bend Aziraphale over, bite him, swallow his needy gasp, make him hard and desperate before they'd even got to the bed. He'd ruin Aziraphale for anyone else and leave him thinking about it for centuries.

Any second now, Crowley thought, staring at his hand. It hovered a few inches from Aziraphale's arm, and no amount of berating it was making it move.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said again, softer this time. Tender. He stepped forward, the movement bringing Crowley's hand to his hip in spite of its intransigence. Warm, soft fingers on his cheek, God's own damned love wrapping itself around him like angel wings.

Fuck, maybe he couldn't do this after all. "Aziraphale -"

"Yes, dear, I know," his angel said, and kissed him.

He didn't know. He absolutely one-hundred-per-cent did _not_ know, he couldn't: he'd never fallen, after all. But he kissed like he'd been thinking about it for awhile, like he'd somehow planned this, though he couldn't possibly have done. After just a moment of head-spinningly good kisses, Crowley found himself pressed against the wood paneling of his bedroom, held immobile as Aziraphale sampled him as though he were a new kind of pastry. "Beautiful," he whispered, "Simply lovely. Superb!"

"I'm not a blessed - soup -"

"You're only a damned *demon*, I know," Aziraphale said. He sounded fond, of all things, and it was almost enough to keep Crowley from flinching. Aziraphale didn't notice, anyway, because Crowley dropped to his knees and got to work on his breeches. He of course had chosen the sort with a dozen tiny buttons, so Crowley undid them with demonic languor, kissing Aziraphale's hand and then pinning it firmly to the wall, pressing and rubbing the fabric of his underclothes against his cock. He was hard, gloriously and unashamedly so; Crowley knew he would remember through the rest of eternity the startled moan Aziraphale let out when Crowley swallowed him down.

Perfect. Perfect, as Aziraphale trembled; sublime, as Aziraphale tugged his hair and demanded _more_, begged for _harder_, entreated him to _let me touch you_. He mischiefed them both over to the bed, whispering, "Keep your miracles," and then: "_Yes_," when Aziraphale flipped them, pinning Crowley and staring at him with all the unbearable intensity he remembered from Upstairs.

Heavenly, that was the word. Heavenly, to be guided through it like Aziraphale had a list he was checking off: spread Crowley's legs, finger him to begging, put his mouth on Crowley's cock, let Crowley come all over his hands. Kiss Crowley when he sobbed as he did.

Whisper, with that warm love glowing all throughout the room, "Oh. _Oh_. You hadn't done it before either."

"Course I have," Crowley lied, and set about distracting Aziraphale with the hands he now knew Aziraphale loved.

Heavenly, too, to wake up the next morning to find himself alone, his bed cold and the love in the room already fading. Heavenly, to not see Aziraphale for years after that, and to only be able to ask the empty air what he'd done wrong.

-

But the love only faded; it didn't disappear. He asked for the holy water all those years later in no small part because Hastur sniffed about suspiciously even after he moved. He felt the danger then, and found himself wanting a bit of insurance. Trust Aziraphale not to understand: insurance, after all, had been Crowley's lot.

-

After, they sat together and discussed eternity.

"It is so very odd," Aziraphale said.

"They're tacos. They've been popular for -"

"No, not the food, the food's lovely. I meant, God."

"- decades now - what?"

"I don't understand Her," Aziraphale said with stiff dignity. He picked up his taco and took a bite while Crowley gaped at him.

"Do you want to, then?" he finally managed to say. "World's saved. We're safe. Can't imagine She'd have much to say about it that we haven't already heard."

"Well, I had a few specific questions, for starters. And -"

"I'd rather you didn't draw Her attention, now that we're finally going to be left alone," Crowley said, and then immediately wanted to chop his tongue off.

Of course Aziraphale wanted Her attention. It was only natural, or at least predictable. And anyway it was none of Crowley's business, strictly speaking, which meant if Aziraphale thought about it for more than five minutes he'd know exactly why Crowley wanted him to leave the status quo as-is. As-was.

And sure enough, Aziraphale's expression softened. "Of course, I wouldn't ask you to speak to Her."

"She's not likely to want to, is She?" He sounded more bitter than he'd intended. "Look, of course you should do what you want. I just -"

"I'd like to confirm I won't be dragged back to headquarters if I kiss you again," Aziraphale said, all in a rush.

"Auuughehehaaaa?" Crowley said.

"Never mind. It was just a silly impulse, that's all."

"No, no, I don't think - ah, but really, do they care so much? After all of it?"

"I'm sure if Upstairs knew -"

"But they don't. Do they?"

Aziraphale bit his lip. "I can't imagine _She_ doesn't, Crowley."

Half their problems boiled down to that, really, the fact that _She_ wasn't Upstairs. Crowley might have Fallen millennia ago, but he sure as fuck had never sung praises to Gabriel. "Well, then, it's settled, isn't it? You're in the clear."

"You mean we."

"Sure."

"Since it's a two-person job."

"Rather."

"And I just - oh, come here." 

Crowley found himself being grabbed by his vest and pulled very resolutely forward for a kiss. He pinwheeled his arms a bit, incredibly undignified, before he got himself under control enough to kiss Aziraphale back.

"Shouldn't we talk? Last time -"

"I panicked! You can hardly blame me! You were so tempting, and I was -"

"Oh, come on." He pulled away at that, retreating to the opposite end of the couch, heart twisting in a horrible parody of longing. "You can't think I was tempting you, not like that. You couldn't possibly."

"Of course I didn't." Said with proud stiffness, like he was offended Crowley had ever thought otherwise. "But I was tempted, all the same, and for you, it was dangerous."

Crowley thought of what Aziraphale might do if he admitted he'd thought about it - the benefits of letting Aziraphale fuck his brains out versus the risk of Hell finding out and ending him once and for all. He probably wouldn't like it. Really he should think of it as a compliment, in Crowley's opinion. He sipped his horchata, thinking of eternity.

All that time. Bird to the mountain and back. And here was Aziraphale, staring at him, getting redder and redder -

Oops. "Are you choking? Should I do the Heinlein?"

"Heimlich. No. but Crowley, if you'd prefer not to, that's fine, but I do wish you'd tell me."

Oh. "But you know I want to."

"I don't!"

How could he not? Crowley hadn't just been obvious, he'd been pathetic. But Arizaphale was looking at him with that specific guileless earnestness he was so good at. He really hadn't known. "Well, I do. I'm all about earthly delights."

"You don't even read," Aziraphale said with familiar despair.

"I don't need to read to suck your cock, angel."

He expected Aziraphale to blush. Perhaps he'd stutter, too, and look away, embarrassed and overwhelmed. But no: Aziraphale bit his lip and said, "I suppose you don't."

It was a mistake. Crowley should know; he tempted people into making them all the time. A lot of human mistakes were sex-related, too, and Crowley had spent the last few hundred years thinking about how foolish he'd been to assume _stupid sex stuff_ was a human flaw.

He might be wretched, cast down, and fallen, but apparently he was still God's creature, imperfect as all the rest. Before he could say something sensible, something like 'No, thank you, I'm in love with you and just don't fancy the idea of casual sex', his traitorous mouth opened and said, "You'd better kiss me again, then."

"Oh, I think I should," Aziraphale said, and suddenly he had a lapful of angel.

He had to go on with it, then, didn't he? No, he didn't. Of course he didn't. But he really did. God had made him for mistakes, apparently, asking questions and breaking rules and, just now, biting Her divine creation on the spot just below his ear that made him moan.

"You remembered," Aziraphale said, tugging Crowley's necktie and then, with a huff of impatience, miracling his tie and vest off him. The sudden rush of air and sensation made Crowley arch his back, seeking more touch, a stronger feeling. 

"I didn't - I don't forget - things."

"Of course you do."

"_About you_," Crowley said, appalled and humiliated and humiliatingly appalled.

"Ah," Aziraphale said, and then: "Be a dear and spread your legs, would you?"

It was everything he wanted and yet nothing he wanted at all. Aziraphale gave him a dear, clumsy, perfect blowjob, and then he let Crowley fingerfuck him, riding Crowley's hand as though he'd never wanted to do anything else. When he came, he babbled praise, and Crowley hid his face against Aziraphale's antique jacket so he wouldn't see the blatantly stupid look on his face just then.

It was wet and sticky, human and perfect. They both loved it. Aziraphale beamingly suggested they do it again, and Crowley, an idiot, agreed. 

Then he went home to his flat, and lay on the couch, and said to himself and his ceiling, "Idiot. Moron. Fool." Somehow they'd averted the end of the world and yet Crowley hadn't fixed anything at all.

-

"Let's go out," Aziraphale said suddenly, two weeks into the Arrangement Part Two, Pornography Version. 

"...out?"

"Yes, out. To, oh, I don't know. That place, Ottolenghi? It's meant to be good, isn't it?"

"I know you know it is. Restaurants are the one thing you pay attention to."

"And books!"

"Buying old ones doesn't count as attention."

"It's a discipline, Crowley, honestly. The time needed to distinguish the wheat from the chaff, the expertise required -"

"Ottolenghi's good for me," Crowley said, because he knew how you researched and collected old books. Aziraphale'd been telling him about it for ages. If he had to watch him get all intense and passionate now, about the hobby he loved a thousand times more than he could ever love any angel or demon, he'd - he'd -

Well, realistically, he'd do nothing but go home and have a bit of a sulk. But he didn't want to. He wanted hummus.

"Let's go then," Aziraphale said, and off they went.

The restaurant was as lovely as promised. They were seated immediately and brought a veritable king's ransom of food. "Now, be careful with this dish," the waiter told Crowley, pointing to one of the vegetable stews. "It's known to burst in your mouth. You'll want to let it cool so you don't get burned."

"Thanks," said Crowley, who had no intention of eating any of the eggplant thingy.

"Of course. And this is a honey cake with fresh ricotta. On the house." The waiter winked at Crowley. "Check under the plate before you eat."

"Sure." Aziraphale'd love that.

"Enjoy, sir." And then the waiter was gone, thank Hell, and Crowley could relax and watch Aziraphale...

Scowl?

"Changed your mind about eating? We can always dine and dash."

"Don't be ridiculous, I wouldn't be able to show my face again for a hundred years if I were to do such a thing." He tucked his napkin into his collar. "No, no, it's nothing, I just didn't expect the service to be so..."

"Good?" said Crowley, who preferred the kind of place where they ignored you or tried to toss you out on your ear. Rather like Aziraphale's bookshop, really. "Customer service is an advanced concept these days, angel."

Unaccountably, a blush rose on Aziraphale's cheeks. "Touchy," he said. "I wasn't expecting the service to be so _touchy_."

Crowley sat there for a few minutes, mulling it over, waiting for inspiration to strike and clarity to enter his mind. Aziraphale had eaten nearly all of the eggplant thingy before he gave up. "I've no idea what you mean." 

"I -"

"How are we doing?" their waiter said in honeyed tones of false cheer. 

(Crowley had tempted so many waiters. It was so easy. They saw the worst of humanity and had plenty of opportunities to lie, cheat, steal, and otherwise sin.)

"_We're_ doing wonderfully," Crowley said. "How are you doing?"

The waiter did a very human kind of expression, something at the midpoint between simpering and crying. "Oh, you know, it's almost the end of my shift. And it's not like I have a boyfriend to go home to, so."

"Right," Crowley said. "'cause obviously that would fix your problems."

He was trying to instill a sense of urgency about the matter, one that would lead the waiter into concluding that rich men got all the boyfriends, so that he'd start stealing from the till. Then he remembered that wasn't really his job anymore, and it was rude to ruin people's lives when you were just out for lunch. "Well, self-actualization solves all your problems, actually," he said. "I can recommend a good therapist, if you want."

The waiter's face went stiff and red. "No. Thanks. Enjoy your meal," he said, and abandoned them.

Crowley sighed happily. "There, now we can talk again."

"Odd fellow," Aziraphale said. "You know, I really thought he wanted -"

"What?"

Another perfect blush spread over Aziraphale's cheeks. "Nothing."

"No, you have to tell me now, come on. I didn't even tempt him into armed robbery."

"That is quite a serious crime."

"Not as serious as murder -"

"Well -"

"Or, arguably, adultery -"

"Crowley!"

"I did marry someone once for that express purpose. Didn't last long. Tell me why you're blushing, angel."

Of course that only made him blush harder. "You. I thought he wanted you."

Crowley tried to recall what the waiter's expression had been like, if he'd sensed avarice or desire. He couldn't recall. He'd been focused on his dinner partner. "Well, he's not likely to now, is he? Problem solved."

"_Is it,_" Aziraphale muttered to his hummus. But then he took a bite of it and his expression dissolved in joy.

Crowley was happy to see it. Of course he was. It didn't bother him a bit that Aziraphale'd look at him with that same sensuous enjoyment and not a whit more. He wasn't worried about the fact that he loved Aziraphale desperately and in return got fond regard and the desire for a rollicking good time having friendly, unromantic sex. Why would that bother him? He was a demon. He wasn't wired to want all that nonsense. 

The fiction survived his dinner out and the wine after. It even survived the fumbled kisses and handjobs that occurred very early in the morning. But as ever, it didn't survive being taken out and examined in the loneliness of his flat. Fucking feelings, Crowley thought. He wished he could toss them down the garbage disposal like all his other under-performing earthly belongings.

-

Crowley walked in on Aziraphale doing something he'd never seen before, something so shocking and out of character that for a moment he was forced to consider demonic interference. He walked in on him selling a book, to a human, with a smile on his face.

"Thank you," the human said. "Oh, right on time. Hello, Crowley."

He knew the human: she was Anathema Device, and so maybe she didn't count. Maybe Aziraphale wasn't possessed after all. "You'd tell me if he was possessed, right?"

She smiled. "Don't worry. I didn't buy any of the books he actually cares about."

"They weren't even here, Before," Aziraphale said.

"Adam's having a little back-to-school party," Anathema said, "and, well, we burned the second book of prophecies, but I had a dream that I came into London to buy him a present for it. Wouldn't you know, Aziraphale here had some books for me to take off his hands."

"A back-to-school party? Sounds terribly American."

"You know, it's a little ridiculous to be eternal occult creatures who identify so strongly with English traditions."

She said everything so sweetly that it always took Crowley, who was always on the lookout for a subtextually cruel meaning, to hear the textual criticism. "Thank you. Hey! It's our jobs to fit in with the humans."

"Though not anymore, I suppose," Aziraphale said.

"No, now it's just your personality." But Anathema didn't look annoyed. Amused, maybe, and Crowley hated being a subject of amusement.

"Begone with you," he said, letting a little of Hell's ever-creeping menace into his voice.

That just made her look more amused. Witches, there was no reasoning with them. "I meant to tell you two - congratulations. Adam's happy for you as well."

He couldn't imagine why Adam would care either way; after all, if they'd failed in their task, he'd have become Prince of Darkness. Seemed better than throwing himself back-to-school-parties. But before Crowley could say as much, Aziraphale said, "Oh, thank you. Yes, do pass it on to him as well."

"I'm surprised you guys didn't register anywhere - or is that an American thing too?"

"What?" Crowley said.

"Right, yes, the shop's closed now, so - thank you, Anathema. I will write you when I find the tincture encyclopedia we discussed. Thank you!" And Aziraphale, upon whom Heaven had bestowed innumerable gifts, marshaled all of them in service of cheerily bustling Anathema out of the shop.

"What was that all about?" Crowley said after his angel had locked them safely away. "Register what? Hell's got a registry, but I wouldn't have thought that was your side's thing."

Aziraphale continued counting the till, not looking up at him. "Oh, who knows. Witches have all sorts of misconceptions. Anyway, it's our side now, isn't it?"

"Sure, but in that case we definitely don't have a registry. Why are you blushing?" 

"I'm not."

"You are!" He really, really was, bright red all over his cheeks and down into his collar. It was second, third, hundredth nature by now, to note the charming flush and then dismiss his reaction to it. Of course he wanted to rediscover how far it went; of course he wanted to kiss the embarrassment away; of course he wondered if Aziraphale would be this red if Crowley dropped to his knees and confessed his love. None of that was important. What was important was - "What kind of registry, angel?"

Aziraphale cleared his throat primly. "I believe she was referring to a wedding registry. It seems that a significant portion of the residents of Lower Tadfield think we're -"

"Engaged?"

"Married, to be precise, though I think Anathema is well aware such a state would look very different for two divine creatures than for herself."

"I'm not divine."

"Well, occult. Not-of-Earth. Really, Crowley, you know what I mean."

Wedding registry. Did that mean anyone could see you were going to be married? How awful. He couldn't imagine. "Well, we're not."

"No."

"Why didn't you correct her?"

He was still so red, and Crowley found it harder to avoid thinking about it the longer this went on. Not just that he'd finally gotten confirmation that Aziraphale did indeed get this red while he had his cock sucked, though that was truly knowledge as dangerous as God made it. But what he really couldn't, wouldn't, think about, was whether Aziraphale might look this embarrassed should Crowley suggest they make her assumption true.

"It just didn't seem important," Aziraphale said.

All of Crowley's wild thoughts stopped dead, a rambunctious pack of horses all sent to the glue factory at the same time. "Right. Of course. Who cares about weddings."

Red, red, red. "Yes, quite."

"Anyway. Dinner?"

"Oh, that would be lovely!"

And off they went. Crowley got so drunk that night he forgot his own name, but it was fine, it was good; he had eternity to let his wounds heal, eternity to figure out how to stop wanting all the _who cares_ bits of his angel.

-

Two weeks after they had mutually agreed that weddings were a human conceit neither of them cared about, a duck in St James' Park said, "**Ducks do have ears, you know.**"

"Course they do, I already knew that," he said. "Wait, what?"

The duck darted its head into the water, then came up so close to the short it could have bit Crowley's toes. "**They listen, too. Your name has been passed down for generations now. In Ancient Duck, it's 'the dumb one'.**"

Crowley looked at the duck, which just looked like a regular duck. He looked at the water, and at the sky. By all accounts it was an ordinary day.

"**I suppose it is a comfort to Me that just as you do not recognize divine love in your oldest friend, you also don't recognize it in a duck. One or the other would be disturbing, but both just means the ducks are right.**"

"You're a duck," Crowley said, because it seemed like the easiest argument available to win.

"**Is that what you think of Me? Look more closely, Crowley.**"

Only the duck that wasn't a duck didn't say **Crowley**; She said his name, his old name, and suddenly he understood what was happening and fell to his knees. 

"Why - what -"

"**If I were going to answer your questions, I would already have done so. Tell my angel the truth. Go home and stop squandering the gifts I've given you, and ask your questions there.**"

There was no clap of thunder, no great tornado. The duck that wasn't a duck became a duck again even as Crowley started crying; it honked at him and then flew off. Modern London being what it was, hardly anyone looked at him twice as he sobbed by the riverbank, overcome and underwhelmed all at once.

"Six thousand years!" he shouted at the sky. "Six thousand years and that's what you tell me? Ducks speak Ancient Duck? Really?"

No answer.

"And he's _my_ angel!" Crowley shouted, hellfire burning his tongue.

Still no answer. But some people had pulled out their cell phones, and Crowley spent enough time with humans to know what would happen next. He had no desire to become a meme.

So he did his least favorite thing: he obeyed God. He went to the bookshop, home in the sense that it was where he'd find his angel. He locked the door and, as Aziraphale looked at him with mounting delight, he crossed the room, dropped to his knees, and said, "Don't ask me yet. I'll tell you, I promise, but don't ask me." And he took Aziraphale in his mouth.

"Oh my dear," Aziraphale said, petting his hair. "Are you sure - is something - _oh_."

Crowley might go too fast and he might not be quite the sensualist Aziraphale was, but he knew how to suck cock. Well - he knew how to suck Aziraphale's cock, and that was all that mattered. He thrilled to hear Aziraphale gasping and begging. The scent of him was everywhere, heavy and perfect, and his thighs trembled with effort as he slowly, slowly gave in to temptation and began to fuck Crowley's mouth. 

All Crowley ever wanted was what he got down here: Aziraphale holding him, using him, whispering his name and "Oh, yes, good, please," and "oh, my dear, my darling." He dug his fingers into Aziraphale's thighs until he bruised just a bit, tightened his grip on Aziraphale's hips when he wasn't moving fast enough to hurry things along. It was perfect - he'd started to think it would always be perfect, simply because he had no idea what a bad time with Aziraphale might look like.

And finally, Aziraphale began to come. Crowley pulled back, ignoring Aziraphale's shocked gasp, closing his eyes and letting it land everywhere: face, shoulders, hair. The echo of Her saying his former name still shook his bones, but here he was safe. Every gasping breath Aziraphale took reminded him of who he really was: Crowley, a demon who'd been on his angel's side for so long that the rest of his history hardly mattered. Here was his loyalty, his calling, his grace. Here, on his knees, bowing his head as Aziraphale babbled praise.

"Look at you," Aziraphale said some minutes later, pulling him to his feet. "My darling. Oh, you're perfect." A hand on his cock, insultingly gentle for a moment and then unavoidably brutal, pulling cries from him that Crowley had hardly realized he could make. And then - oh, _oh_. Tears sprung up in the corners of his eyes as Aziraphale kissed him, biting his lips and holding him still, a little uncomfortable, arched back and tense muscles and -

He came with divine love all wrapped around him, Aziraphale on him and in him. He fucked Crowley with his tongue and disassembled him with his hands, and by the end of it Crowley had almost forgotten about ducks altogether.

Almost.

"What happened at the park?" Aziraphale murmured as Crowley pretended not to cry against his shoulder. They were still standing in the bookshelves, far from comfortable, but Crowley didn't care as long as Aziraphale didn't. "You don't have to tell me now, dear, but - are you all right? Generally?"

What did _all right_ even mean, with the Almighty off insulting him via duck? Crowley bit back a laugh and a sob and said, "I'm fine, I think. Only - ugh." He couldn't make his grand confession kneeling on a bookshop floor with Aziraphale's come on his tongue. But then he couldn't make it in his outrageously comfortable bed, either, nor in front of his plants who might get ideas about his willingness to forgive, nor outdoors where anyone might hear him, including the ducks with their oral history of his faults. No, if you thought about it, there was really nowhere and no time it would be reasonable to tell Aziraphale the truth. Best to lie.

But She had told him not to! And he didn't care, of course, but Aziraphale did. He cared quite a lot. So - so -

"Auuuugh," Crowley said, and put his face against Aziraphale's knee. The skin was soft and salty; he licked it and tried to think of what he could possibly say.

Only the truth: She had been very clear on that point. How bad could it be? Couldn't hurt worse than falling. He closed his eyes and said, "Your Mother who art in heaven would like me to tell you that I'm in love with you, have been forever - literally forever, please don't make me elaborate."

Silence.

"Please say something." He couldn't open his eyes. He half thought he didn't have eyes anymore. "Angel -"

"I lied."

The bottom fell out of Crowley's stomach. "What?"

"Restaurants and books, do you remember? The things I pay attention to."

Crowley had half forgotten his own former name, he'd forgotten most of Heaven, he'd even forgotten which floor his inbox was on in Hell. But he remembered every blessed word Aziraphale had said, for all those millennia. "I might, I suppose."

"I lied," Aziraphale said again. He sounded so sad and detached, as though he were discussing some human murder hundreds of years removed. His endless love was so powerful sometimes that Crowley forgot the other side - all the sadness, as humans failed to live up to his hopes.

Well. Humans, and Crowley.

"I pay attention to one more thing." Aziraphale's fingers touched Crowley's chin, then his cheek. He lifted his head obligingly to see Aziraphale staring at him with an unutterably sad expression. _You go too fast for me_, echoed Crowley's memory. "You, darling. It's you."

His heart beat because it was one of the constraints of a mortal body that was rather more work than it was worth to circumvent. Consequently, blood moved throughout him constantly, all wet and sticky and gross. Some of that blood landed in his cheeks just then. To a human it would be blushing, but of course Crowley wasn't human. For him it was only a biological response, divorced entirely from his feelings, which weren't of embarrassment or anything else that would make a human blush. It was meaningless, then, the way his face burned as he absorbed what Aziraphale had said. "Me."

"Yes. You."

"You pay attention to me - well, of course you do. The Arrangement and all that. Thwarting. Can't thwart what you're ignoring."

His angel had the nerve to look *fond*. "I think you know that's not what I mean."

And Crowley broke, just a bit.

Once, many years ago, just after he'd rescued Aziraphale from the Bastille, Crowley had found himself staring. Staring and wanting, to be precise, and wondering how it was that Aziraphale's hastily miracled French peasant outfit hadn't destroyed the feelings eating their way through Crowley's insides. It had been thousands of years, and he still had them - in fact, they got worse. Lust, of course, and curiosity. Interest, for when Crowley asked the questions he'd been tossed out of heaven for, Aziraphale blushed and stuttered but also sometimes answered. And some thing else - something overwhelming. A need, a desire, an obsession. Avarice. He thought perhaps he'd invented it, maybe back in Rome, staring at the same angel he stared at in France. A desire and jealousy so overpowering it felt almost like divinity. A need. He needed Aziraphale, most desperately, and Aziraphale must never know.

That had been hundreds of years ago now. It also might as well have been last week. "Well, here then," he said, more harshly than he should have but exactly as harshly as he intended. "You pay attention to me? Wonderful. You must've noticed I'm in love with you, then. I want to ruin you, angel. Head over heels. I want you to forget your divinity and just - stay with me forever, you see? Fuck everyone else. I love you, and I'm a demon, which means we're both damned."

"You really do have a penchant for dramatics. I told Anathema you'd never done theater and she didn't believe me."

Crowley thought he might explode. All that came out when he tried to tell Aziraphale to go fuck himself was a kind of high-pitched wail.

"Darling. No, come up here." Aziraphale pulled him off the floor and pressed him, gently but firmly, against a wall of bookshelves. "What did you think I mean? Of course I love you. I always have done, and of late I've been...well, coming to terms with it, I suppose. I'm sorry it took me so long." And he kissed Crowley so sweetly and softly that Crowley's knees almost buckled all over again.

Then he forced himself to really think on what Aziraphale'd said, and they did buckle. He staggered and leaned against Aziraphale, fighting for air. "Tell me you meant it. Really, it's." He kissed Aziraphale's neck, his ear. "You love me? Like I do. Obsessively, angel, I need you to know. I want to fuck you, I want to - _keep_ you - just -" He desperately wanted Aziraphale's answer, but he couldn't wait for it: he kissed him, and Aziraphale kissed back, greedy and joyous as ever.

"Darling. Crowley. My love, I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. I love you. The marriage bit - it's true, you see, in all the ways that matter. I would tell God Herself, were She here."

Crowley thought of the ducks and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

"Crowley?"

"It's nothing. Well, it's something." Quite a big something, actually, but it could wait. "Kiss me again."

"Anything you want," Aziraphale said, and did as Crowley asked.

And the real miracle was, Crowley believed him.


End file.
